Colson Montgomery, White Sox pound Orioles to close June with two-game division lead

BALTIMORE — White Sox bats erupted for a seven-run third inning on Tuesday en route to a 9-3 victory, locking up a series win over the Orioles as well as the Sox’ first consecutive winning months since 2021.

Cleveland’s loss to the Rangers sent the upstart Sox into July with a two-game lead in the American League Central, and a sense that they’re just getting started.

“It’s a winning month, but you feel like we weren’t really hot this month,” manager Will Venable said of a 13-12 June.

Serving as the leadoff hitter, catcher Kyle Teel drew a walk to open the game and scored on a double by Andrew Benintendi off Baltimore starter Trey Gibson.

Colson Montgomery kickstarted the third frame by walloping his 21st home run of the season 440 feet onto Eutaw Street, a two-run rainbow that made him the first Sox slugger to leave Camden Yards since Adam Dunn’s 2013 moonshot in Baltimore.

“I didn’t even think it went over that gate,” a modest Montgomery reflected. “I knew I got it pretty good, though.”

The Sox piled on Gibson, who loaded the bases and gave up a two-run single to first baseman Jacob Gonzalez and a three-run bomb to left fielder Junior Perez. Gonzalez later roped a pair of doubles, one for his sixth RBI of the series, and fell a few feet shy of a homer in the ninth.

Erick Fedde, making his first start sans opener since June 3, went five innings, giving up three runs on five hits and three walks with three strikeouts. Rookie Tyler Schweitzer pitched four scoreless innings for his first career save and the latest pleasant surprise in a season full of them.

“It’s exactly where we want to be,” Fedde said. “Everybody here believes that we can win a division.”

Blazin’ Burke

Sean Burke fanned O’s catcher Adley Rutschman on Monday with a 98.9 mph sinker, the second-fastest pitch Burke has thrown all season.

It came about two weeks after his fastest, a 99.3 mph four-seamer for a punchout that sealed the Sox’ June 18 win at Yankee Stadium. Burke has hurled his 13 hardest throws of the year over the past month, no small coincidence with one of the righty’s best stretches so far.

He has racked up 22 strikeouts over his past three outings while lowering his ERA to 3.69 on the season, while his fastball has regularly lit up the radar gun well above his 94.7 mph season average.

“It just feels a lot easier for me to go out there and just be in the zone,” Burke said of his velocity uptick. “Not only the stuff getting a little bit better, but just the zones I’m throwing it to, the sequencing and all that stuff that goes into it — it’s really rewarding to see that that stuff’s paying off.”

Venable called Burke’s fastball “dominant,” but Sox pitching coach Zach Bove said the off-speed command has improved, too.

“I think the curveball has kind of opened up the avenues,” Bove said. “When guys have to respect that, it opens so many more options to attack guys.”

Eyes Teeled

In his sixth game of the season Monday, Teel showed a keen eye for MLB’s new automated ball/strike system, going 4-for-4 on his challenges of calls by home-plate umpire Bruce Dreckman.

Teel ascended through the minors using the ABS system, but he’s still getting his feel for it at the big-league level after missing most of the first half with hamstring and knee injuries. The second-year backstop lost his first two challenges after returning.

“Not playing the game for a while, it’s just like learning that strike zone again, and it’s not easy,” Teel said. “So I feel like it’s just letting it come to me, not forcing anything.”

Illinoisans aplenty

The Sox traded Triple-A reliever Ben Peoples (5-1, 2.39 ERA), a prize in last year’s trade of starting pitcher Adrian Houser, to the Rangers for High-A catcher Ben Hartl, who played at downstate Heartland Community College along with fellow Springfield native Sam Antonacci.